My day, which started Sunday with a photo-day, and ended around 5pm or so this evening, a LONG day, but a good day overall I think. When you get past 12 hours awake, most people start to feel tired, normal I suppose, at 20 hours, if your up, you may get cranky, at 24 hours, most people don’t know what to do with themselves, I personally went into the office early, and ended up hangin out with my buddy William for a good chunk of the day.
The internet went out at the office, which was bad for everyone - but out of it, a new line is being provisioned, and things are moving forward to hopefully, be a tad more stable in the long run, but even with out internet most of the day, it was a good day - because when I don’t sleep I get to a point where my brain stops over-thinking, stops functioning at 200% above speed, it just passes out and leaves me to think a tad more clearly - and that’s fun too when hanging out with a kid.
I dunno, I have always been a tad, how should I put it, withdrawn, careful on what I say, mindful of what I think, and observant of what others are doing/going through - just how I am, how I was raised - but when you brain goes a mile a minute, thinking out ever scenario, each good/bad possiblity, it can get old quick, but in life since I am going through 10,000 possiblities in the corse of a single option of the day, I tend to displace something I am feeling, I have come to realize by hanging out with kids - kids tend to say what they think, which can lead to the classic “all 3 parts of the name” mother call “CHARLES ANDREW BROWN!!!!” but for me, I tend to put it into a “Well wouldn’t that be something” and push it off to the side as a funny after thought if someone brings it up, and it’s what I was thinking/feeling/wanting to say - I make it sounds like I wouldn’t be interested, but really I probably was, not always like that, but on ocasion someone hits on the head what I was feeling/thinking, and I panic.
Lately in life, I think people are seeing what I am feeling/thinking better than I am, and I have been trying to be mindful of that, but then again, I also have people projecting what they’d like to see happen in my life ie. married/relationship/kids - and while I am all for that, I dunno, I am still over-thinking it, there was a gal about a year ago, heck who am I kidding, even though she’s dating a guy right now I’d still do just about anything for her, no matter her ups/downs/etc. I still care about her - I had gotten the courage up to JAHOYFT - but the same day my courage, and every extra thought I could have was set aside, she tells me she has a boyfriend. “Yay”
The timing has never been right, or I over-think it all too much - heck my family/friends already have my new relationship picked out, and while I am not object to it, I just dont know, I have 10,000 factors already running in my head - and the biggest thing is really “What am I feeling?” - there’s a song by Chris Rice called “Love Like Crazy” it’s taken from scripture more or less, and the jist of the song is we should all love like crazy, as Christ did and loved so much, “He gave His life away” and as Christians we should also love to that same nearly insane style of love - that whole love with every ounce of your being - and thats what I try to do, but breaking that apart from personal feelings, thats where things get fuzzy in my mind.
I dunno, relationships are a interesting thing, and maybe when I meet “the one” my brain will shut up (I hope it does) - it’s never been an issue with talking with Gals, piece of cake, but the idea of going from Friend -> Girl Friend, heck even my 6th grade girlfriend was a series of notes passed lol - so maybe I need to get some notepads
But that’s it, probably going to crash out here shortly, just trying to empty my brain of things, so this may not of made much sense, but such is how my brain is right now, it got sleep, so it’s trying to reboot now, so I am instead going to goto sleep again Night folks.
Well I just got done uploading the raw goodies, nothing photoshop’d or tweaked, just as shot - there were two different parts to my wandering first was me driving up to my ol haunt Mt. Breckenridge - a classic for me - the second half was randomly picked by Courtney who I simply asked the question “Right or Left?” she picked Left - which is the direction I turned and ended up on a 2 1/2 hour drive to and from Tehachapi,CA (Great Burger King up there, very fresh) - one spot I took about 20 shots, and was able to create a little time-lapse photography, (warning that’s 2.4mb).
All in all it was fun, I do have a Panoramic set of shots I want to see if Photoshop CS3 can piece together for me with it’s new fancy tool - who knows, may have a pretty view to share later tonight - but all in all, a relaxing drive - some fair shots, some I want to run through CameraRAW or Lightroom (which I pre-ordered today) so might have some fixed up shots later on.
Anywhoo - enjoy the shots - if you want something larger, I have 8MP raw’s - just comment on the photo.
Well I am about to head out to for a photo-sunday - I also just snagged a copy of Adobe Lightroom, $224 (with CD/Download) it worked awesome in beta, and really did do some great processing of my photos, so I am very excited to have it, and I think maybe this year while hosting balances out, and such, I’ll focus a bit more on photography, if this job comes through with my bro, then I will save up some for a place, and also for additional lenses.
But I should have a post later this afternoon/evening, it’s awesome and cloudy, so I want to snag some shots before it starts raining.
Music lately has been one heckuva way to focus and clear my head, did some playing last night, and tonight after a day of sleeping the entire day (all but maybe 20-30 minutes) I slept, was a very nice day, and it’s finishing up with some off and on rain, which is a nice peaceful thing to help with calm/relaxing.
What a crazy 2 weeks. Followed up with a Friday that was so back and forth, wowza! Just glad it ended on a fun note, saw Eragon with my cousin, as she knew I’d go see it, and no one else probably would go with her, but for $4 - it was alright, I love our cheap theater, I still want to see Stranger than Fiction with Will Ferrel, looks hilarious, but I hate going to the movies alone, anyone wanna come?
But tonight’s playing around on the piano, was nice, did a lot of just off the wall stuff, playing around, no recording, but then I decided to record something:
I know I know, it’s just one of those bits of music I hafta play now and again, it’s silly, but from as simple as it can be, to complex and a tad more elegant, it’s a good piece to just play and tweak since the basicness of it is easy to remember - I also fiddled with the main theme from The Notebook, one I have fiddled with off and on for years, sure sure, I could buy the sheet music, but where’s the fun in that? Where’s the discovery?
I am doing a lot better though this weekend, some folks have expressed concern for me, and I greatly appreciate the comments on the last post, the IM’s asking me if I am good, heck even people at the office wondering if I am okay - just 2 weeks of high stress, lack of sleep, and a mind that won’t quit - some things, it’s still grinding away at, but 2-3 things compared to 30000 things, I’ll take that any day - sometimes I wish I was a big company, lots of employees, but then the other end of that, I also wish I was a W2 employee who had a set of things to do, for-sure paycheck that didn’t just rest on if clients wanted to PayPal funds in, but simply was there because I did the work.
Life is choice, life is mistakes and learning from them, and in the end Life is what you allow it to become, not what you make it. I know too many people who tell me that “Life is what YOU make it.” - honestly, I think in life we do make it, we stand in the way of GREAT things happening, fear, doubt, constantly questioning “Is this Right?!” - I know I am definitely guilty of it, but hopefully one day, I’ll get Chuck out of the way, and let some things which could be a benefit to me, happen. All in due time.
Well it’s coming up on 1am, got a great bit of piano time in, had some fun chats during, before, and who knows, here in a bit someone may start chatting me up - night is still young. Have a Good Sunday, and hopefully a not too stressful monday. Night.
Lately I just keep finding folks who I have been nice to, simply throw dirt in my face. Folks I went above and beyond to help out, teach a little something to, come back and just disrespect me - I dunno, I guess I do let folks walk all over me sometimes I suppose, not all folks, but sometimes I try to be nice to people to lend a hand, or help out with something, and all I get from it is that pile of dirt thrown at me.
Recently a few customers have left, and some have noted they are going to host with a ‘friend’, and I know who it is, a former customer who I helped out a lot, trying to be a nice guy, a nice host, and go above and beyond to help out - only to have them run off to the nearest bargain host, and take their friends off my ’sub-par’ hosting services, apparently because I don’t offer 3.2TB of storage, and and 100TB of transfer, I am not worthy to host their friends, them, or any projects of theirs anymore.
Just really irks me, and I wish I could say it was only in business, but in personal life too, I have been nice, tried to help friends, only to be just ditched, abandoned, and left at the butt-end of a deal. Some would say “Well Chuck, those aren’t real friends.” or “If your only helping to keep a friend, thats not a real friend” - well apparently thats a hardway to learn that fact, but none the less I guess I learned it, but it doesn’t seem to stop me from helping folks. Even my brother made a comment about one person he knew I helped, needless to say he’s not a fan of this person anymore, at any level.
So how does one change from a helpful additude to a mildly helpful additude without becoming a jerk? I know some of this is lack of sleep talking, and I only have 1 real task left for this evening, and that’s to migrate a reseller to a new server, and goto sleep. I dunno, I realize especially in the hosting game I am fighting a uphill battle, hosting providers these days are a dime a dozen, everyone and their brother wants to do web hosting, some get away with charging $100+ for little or nothing, and folks pay it, some charge nothing for a lot, and last for 3 months till the company goes out of business, but where do you draw the line?
I know this year for hosting is going to be awesome, the plans I have in mind will help expand services, increase storage/speed for customers, and just give a greater overall experience, but I don’t have a team of NOC Monkeys, or a Billing Department, or a Sales Department, when you want to talk to them, you talk to me, this to me is a benefit, I like helping people, but when does helping people become a harm to me? Thoughts? or is it neat to as the bible puts it simply “Love like Crazy” and be nice to everyone no matter what? Who knows. Life is silly sometimes I must work then sleep now, night all. Have a good weekend.
Well while I could say all the bad things that have happened this week, my budget being ultra ultra tight right now, and such (okay I guess I just did) life has been fair, maybe even borderline great. This week just had a lot of stresses, a lot of challenges, and a lot of times where I wanted to slap some people.
I am sitting here at the office just wrapping up, waiting for a 8pm project to start, followed by a 10pm project, followed by moving some core services from old server -> new server - just really tired, more mentally than physically, but that’s just how I tend to go, things tend to pile up, and the way my brain works, it grinds away at them and really just wears me down a bit, just want to curl up, enjoy a stupid movie, maybe even something cute and heartwarming, you know, just shutdown the brain, and not be the server guy, the art guy, or the tech guy for a few hours.
Today was a fun day, got to help out a friend, really I supose I didn’t HAVE to - I decided to, snagged her cheap internet at her house to help her out, give her a place to unwind when she gets home - which is important, plus for work stuff, may come in handy too as things go along, be able to do QB from home if she needs to, I dunno, just seemed like it’d be a help to her.
Had a nice chit chat with that same friend, for reference we shall call her Courtney went to drop by a video for Mr. William and ended up staying and chatting probably longer than I should, but the two of us get talking, we have 20+ years of knowing each other, we can talk for hours upon hours - but some good talks, funny, silly, serious, and just a hint of venting.
What else has been up, let’s see, servers really have taken up a lot of my time - but just a lot of things, trying to figure out where I am going lately, some job opportunities are hanging around, heck got a guy who gave me a number to call, but its one of those things, just in the middle of busy, so haven’t gotten a chance to call - kept trying to explain that to the guy, but he said “Call tomorrow” - tomorrow is nearly done, I just haven’t gotten to it - but if the job with my bro comes through, I think I am going to also try to wing this year being W2′d as well from the kMan, as I hate 1099’s they screw up my taxes all over the place - just irritating, I realize I am not a corp. of any kind, but taxes shouldn’t be overly complicated.
Last thing, getting away, while I would love to sneak away to the land down under and take Mr. Dunning up on his offer - I still need in the mean time to get out of town, away from some work stuff, never can get away from all, but at least a nice break, something to allow my brain to cool down - probably won’t get away this weekend, and if schedule goes as planned, probably not next weekend either, but soon - just need a disconnect for even a few days.
Anywhoo - 6:30 is coming up, and the building is quiet now as I am the only one left, so I am going to call it a night (for here at the office) and head home I guess. Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for reading my crazy thoughts.
Well what a week, heck what a crazy 2 weeks, today though things got better on the server front, hardware was in, software was installed, cPanel lic.’s were purchased - and I doubt I’ll sleep tonight - re-imaging Homestar right now (aka this server) base is down, so now is the “waiting” process for cPanel install, hours, of fun.
Prolonged stress is not good for the ol body, I was dead today, found a server which has 15 errors now, so the timing for migration is perfect, sadly there won’t be much warning for customers per-say, but I am going to push one server ASAP so things are safe, secure, and on new hardware, it run’s backups tomorrow too, so should give me a day tops, but I do want to migrate things over the next 2 days, but I know several folks who that may not work for instantly, but I think I can make it happen, plus new DNS system in place, some changes should happen a LOT quicker.
Pray for Sam M. and his family, there as an explosion today and his Dad was one of the injured, I haven’t gotten any updates, last I knew was that he left the office, and headed for the hospital where his dad was going into surgery, I have txt. messages out, but hospital areas sometimes require cell phones off, so hopefully things are going okay - but your prayers are appreciated.
Pray for Me too - I am frazzled and fried, long nights, high-stress, no sleep, etc. and it’s not over yet, but hopefully get a few winks here tonight briefly and start early in the AM getting things migrated, going to move my own stuff ASAP, that way I am on a fresh IP addy and emails alerting folks to changes go out, but moves are always a pain, but in this case, must be done.
But there’s something a nice dump of my brain going into this Fake Friday, should be a fun one (i hope) Night Folks.
